A new post about Tintri, again. But this is a news that I can’t ignore: its all-flash array line T5000 today has a new born. A little brother, T5040, up to 18TB and 1,500 VMs in a 2U box.
More over, a new version of Tintri OS 4.1 supporting Xenserver hypervisor, among other new features.
Last, “Tintri Analytics”: a predictive system at VM and application level.

This new all-flash array at a street price of 125k$ opens this technology to more companies with lower budgets, and aimed to serve all the applications requiring heavy workloads like large persistent databases or persistent VDIs.
The raw capacity is 5,76TB made by 24x240GB SSDs driven by a dual-controller.
At the moment Tintri can offer 3 All-Flash array models (T5000 series) and 3 Hybrid models (T800 models).

This new born device will be managed by the new OS 4.1, announced on December, in a webinar, from his co-founder and CTO Kieran Harty. The most important feature is the support of another hypervisor: Xenserver, but even the File-level Restore, Shared Snapshot Deletion, Openstack/Cinder and more.

Tintri Analytics go deep inside customer’s VMs and applications to shape the future needs in terms of space and performances – it will integrate the already complete Analytics. And you won’t run out of space since the analytics will predict you when and what to buy.

We’re used to think at storage like some monolithic entities, black, inaccessible (only support can), and managed by strong specialists.
The Tintri concept is somehow different.

Let’s start saying that this is a virtual-only storage: don’t even think at it for physical purposes, it will lose all its charm.
I’ll talk about the hybrid solution, T880 is the top device among Tintri’s hybrids.

What’s different from others: the magic inside the (white – posh!) box. Actually, that’s simply a mix of SAS and SSD disks, so? So, the software is the difference.
Some of you could say “Well, so why have a complete box instead of simply a software”. Yes, it makes sense. The reason why they decided to join HW and SW is “compliance”. Offering their own mix of HW with their SW let them say exactly which the performances will be, that there are no conflicts inside and, last but not least, a single point of support.
Let’s have a look at the benefits.
I think that the main benefit is performance. Anyone used to traditional storage will be amazed. Latencies and IOPS are something that traditional storage can’t afford.Setup – to set a box up in a rack will take no more than 30 minutes, its console configuration 5, its remote configuration 10. In less than 1 hour you’ll have your new datastore up&running.Dedup and compression – somehow variable between 1,5 and 2 in practical world, and it is performed in-line with no loss of performances.QoS – one of the reasons for the title. Tintri allows QoS per single VM, it means that if you need just a VM inside a group to be fast, is enough to work directly on it, should you decide that speed is no more necessary, again enough move the QoS crossbar. This also means having VIP customer and new marketing tools, if you’re a CSP like the company I work for.

TGC, a.k.a. Tintri Global Centre, an orchestrator of all the features of all the VMstore installed. It’s not only a single panel to control the storage, but an instrument for better global analytics, an overview on all the VMs and global performances of the whole system.Storage management is unbelievably easier, all the time needed to manage LUNs and inflexible blocks can be allocated elsewhere.Footprint – a T880 fills 4U, it’s power consumption is about like an hairdryer, need for cooling more or less as a couple of blades.
Now the unpopular items. If you have less than 80% virtualized, it’s not the best choice. If your budget is quite limited, you should look at traditional, even if slower, products. If you need performances, don’t have budget limits and your environment is pretty stable, look at all-flash arrays.

Finally, I’d like to spend some words for the quality of support. During our P.O.C. (which I strongly advice to ask for) we had an issue with a disk, of course the system wasn’t new. I was impressed by the time elapsed from ticket being opened, to call and web-ex received, and solution.

All in a flash, as the name “Tintri” in old Irish stands for. Good job guys, and “keep it simple”!

November, 12th the most important VMware Italian users event was held in Milan.

It’s been the third one, and the most successful of all 3.
I care it especially because I had my first public speech in a so important occasion.
But for sure it wasn’t me the best part. The VMUGIT Team did an awesome work.
They were able to invite people like (I’m following the list from
http://www.vmug.it/):

Mariano Maluf – VMUG International President, he’s the man pushing the buttons in the VMUG control room.

I must be honest, I followed few of the sessions scheduled, since I was nervous about mine, but I’d like to report the feelings of the events.

Attendees: all of the ones I talked to felt like attending a really important event. All of them excited for the international speakers. Most of them were there on their own, some taking an holiday from work. I believe they came back home satisfied.

Sponsors: Since I was hosted by one of them, I can report directly that, at least for Tintri, they were inside a tech vault, talking to practical and well prepared professionals. So they expressed their best. Having a walk around for the other booths, anyway, I picked up more or less the same thoughts and behaviours – they knew that UserCon wasn’t the place for small talks and big numbers, but it was a good opportunity to introduce them to the tech heart of every company.

Speakers: I personally feel dazzled when I consider Duncan Epping – see him talking with the same passion everytime is incredible, so maybe I can’t be unbiased. His session reminded me one of his best ones presented at last VMworld, however he can be considered as the natural father of VSAN. Andrea Siviero, another great professional in my mind, explained in a simply way how to design complex scenarios through VMware Validated Design. Me, I will not talk of me, just to say that my passion for Tintri solution is real and evincible by numbers. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to follow other sessions.

Staff: I already knew Giuseppe Guglielmetti, a passionate professional, I already met Andrea Mauro, incredible blogger-reviewer-organizer-consultant-…superman! But it was the first time with the others. I had the confirmation on my beliefs – they are a strong team, and I feel proud to be a member!

vExpert 2017

vExpert 2016

My own tweets

RT @jeffreykusters I’m REALLY enjoying the @VMware Outcome-Focused Approach training! Interactive exercises, a business innovation game sim. And we only get to talk ‘business outcome’. No VMware products or technology mentioned. And today, we finally get access to the PS Solution Builder! #ITQ